Terraplane (13 page)

"Isn't much traffic, this time of night," Doc said. "We ought to
make it in no time."

"What time is it?" I asked, fumbling for nonexistent seat belts.

"Clock's right there," he said. With a key, he ignited; when the
engine caught it roared and pounded loud. Finding the clock, I
found too that it bore hands. Seeing me count off the divisions,
Doc said, "One-thirty." He jerked a steering-column lever
knobbed with speckled blue, and drew up his left leg. Only on old
cars traveling the streets of Kabul or Ankara or out on the Island
had I, since childhood, seen such a system. Twohanded, with
evident strain, he steered us roadways.

"Usually I'm not running around this time of night," he said.
"Ever' Friday I'm assigned to work over at East Orange Colored
Hospital. Poor people out there need all the help they can get."

"Colorful hospital?"

"You could say that," he said. "I'll tell the world it's a hell of a
mess on weekends."

In the rearview I saw Jake inserting his pocket-player's phones so
that for short minutes, through long-sung songs, he might ascend
free from all surrounding. He drew Oktobriana near, despite the
heat; Jake generally showed affection only to the unconscious, but
his hold was a different hold that night.

"Where's the AC?" I asked, vizzing the dash; there wasn't even a
radio.

"AC?" Doc said. "You mean electricity?"

"No. Air-conditioning. Sorry to misunderstand."

"In a Terraplane?" Reconsidering, I surreptitiously handcrept
the doorside, hoping to find the window button. "Packard, maybe.
Not in this car. You want some air?" he asked; paused, as if to
rephrase. "Use that little crank with the knob on the right. Don't
yank the handle, you'll fall out the door." Finding it, I rolled;
leaned into the breeze's hot sting. "You and him aren't Russian," he
said, "but you're not Americans. Where you all from?"

"We're American," I said.

"Been out of the country a long time?" he asked.

"Not long." Doc's car seemed suspension-free as we bumped
and banged along; when he shifted again we settled into cruise. We
passed a small house on road's righthand; two thick stanchions
stood in the dirt lot fronting. Seeing their hoses and dials and
globes marked HESS I realized they were gas pumps. A sign on
houseside told that within could be bought ice-cold buttermilk,
live bait and Moxie. Between house and bog a billboard
announced a sale on DeSotos.

"What's Moxie?" I asked.

"Spunk," he said. "Oh, you mean the drink?"

I shrugged.

"I tasted it once. Tasted like tar. Creosote."

How often did he drink creosote? I wondered. "DeSotos are a
car?" His look shifted, towards me, to the road, towards me again.

"Not often you see a mixed group like yours in the country.
Some people get a little upset."

"One car tried a hit," I said. "Missed." We reached a narrow,
arched bridge that crossed, said a sign, the Hackensack River. The
roadway hummed as we hit it, startling my heart into extra beats.
The buzz was as a plane speeding down to spray.

"You in any trouble with the law?" Doc asked, lowvoiced.

"We've interacted no legal modes improperly, as I gather."

"Level with me if you're on the lam, friend. You got something
to come clean about, you come clean now for my sake just so I'll know what's going on. I'm not going to rat on you 'less you give me
reason to."

Paranoia's oddest feature is that those closest are least trusted,
and a stranger may prove the safest confidant; still, there was no
trusting this one yet. If we tarried overlong round him, and under
circumstance I knew there might not be choice, he'd have to be
told unless he guessed beforehand. I nearly spoke then, but feared
he would cast us away so soon after catching us. At present need for
doctoring outweighed need to inform; I stilled my tongue.

"Stand in my shoes a minute," he said; why should I want to? I
wondered, but didn't say. "I'm driving 'cross the Meadows in the
middle of the night. Catch you three just crawled out of the
swamp. Negro man, white man, white woman. Injured white
Russian woman. Ever' one of you beat-up, filthy dirty. Covered
with blood. You think people aren't going to do more than just
rubberneck? Tried to run you down, hell. You all're lucky nobody
tried to shoot you, just on general principle."

"Why'd you assist if we showed so strange?"

"I'm a doctor," he said. "God helps fools, doctors help people. If
God helped people 'stead of fools, world'd be a perfect place,
wouldn't it?" Extracting a cigarette from shirt pocket he stuck it in
at mouthcorner, pressed a dash button and tossed a crumpled pack
atop the dash. LUCKY STRIKE, its green and red colors told;
Christmas colors. "Think you can salvage your plane?"

"It's demolished," I said. It wasn't, but none here could effect
needed repairs. The button clicked; he pulled it out, lighting his
cigarette with its glowing end. Noxious fog sucked the air's oxygen
away.

"What? Never seen -a lighter before?"

"Doctors never smoke," I said, staring.

"Maybe not the doctors you know. If I didn't smoke I couldn't
afford to eat," he laughed, slapping a hand stomachways. "Much as
I can put away." He blew smoke as if pumping a bellows; I faced the
window's wind, gulping Jersey air. "Plane, huh? Just like old Lindy. I
went to the aerodrome out at Holmes Field last year. Those Negro
pilots from California, you know the ones. They put on a hell of a
show Something to see, brother. Made you walk out a proud man. "

"We wished to go homeways," I said. "Only that."

"Ever'body's wandering these days," he said. "Travel if you got
plenty, travel if you're busted. If you're getting by, like me, you
don't get around much. Lots of people wind up in New York. It'll
take most anybody. Better here than most places, brother, believe
you me, especially for our people." He patted my shoulder. I
wondered about his own suspicions; he'd not inquired as to our
specific origin. Whether I read overmuch in, or whether he wasn't
yet sure if he wished to know, I couldn't guess; only fear. "Take a
long time getting here?"

"Years," I said.

The swamp vanished behind us; we ascended the low grade
leading to town. Above the crest ahead the azimuth brightened
above New York's everrising skyline. Through the car windows the
panorama without washed rich with detail's rising tide until all
flowed together into a torrent bearing an America horrifying in its
course's inferred innocence. The flood carried ragtag tourist
courts, airflowed chrome diners, tile-roofed gas stations hawking
Sinclair at twenty or Getty at eighteen, sprawling roadhouses with
dance floors worn bare. Lamplit billboards sold the Kiwanis, Rup-
pert's beer, Silvertop bread, Hudson automobiles, Mazda bulbs,
Crosley radios. One big sign announced, beneath a drawing of a
carborne family, grinning madly as if driving into sweet, sweet
blast, that There's No Way Like the American Way; the other showed
nothing but that silhouette of prick and orchid ball, this time with
overlain legend proclaiming VISIT THE WORLD OF TOMORROW.

At ridge's peak the road swept downward; across the road's open
cut, over the black river, stood lost New York, its ornate steeples
rising as a host of sparkling crystals, freed from the looming
flooded walls of our day. We passed into the tunnel below the dark,
house-shingled hills, shooting into the city as a virus enters the
blood, forever changing the body entering as it changed the body
entered.

"GET YOUR FLYERS SET, LUTHER," SAID Doc, MIDTUNNEL. SO
glaringly white the lights within glowed that I felt to be speeding
through a fluorescent tube. "Friday night, so they'll still have the
watch up. Hey, Jake!"

Jake, deaf to normal call, softly serenaded himself, eyes lidhid
from this world's grotesqueries, ears pitched sole to history's song.
Oktobriana fastened limpetlike onto his slumped shoulder, sleeping safely unaware. As if by instinct he stroked her face, brushing
her skin's canvas with new color. Under music's influence, I fancied, mayhap Jake's soul returned; heretofore to my sight in his life's
art he brought to his palette no hue save red.

"Jake!"

"Don't scream," he muttered, de-earing his phones, moving
nothing else; I relaxed minuteslong.

"You hear better without that deaf-aid than you do with it, Jake.
We're coming into town, friend. Better look sharp."

"Doc," I said, "translate flyers. I'm uncertain."

"Oh, you know. Your pass papers. Get 'em handy."

"Pass what?" Giving suitable ear impossibled when such unfathomed slang proposed to cue. By my incomprehension, anger's
cloud shaded his face, though his temper's worst kept at deep run;
his wheel grip tightened and his knuckles paled as blood drained
from hands to head.

"Your pass papers," he repeated. "You don't have them on you?"

"Haven't them at all," I said. "What's meant?"

His voice's organ loosed all stops. "Buncha damn lulus, you
are," he said. "You know that? All of you just follow my lead, then,
till we get through. You especially." With pointing finger he
emphasized my attention's need. "Let me do the talking. I think I
can pull the wool over their eyes." Dehatting himself he topsided
his brim onto my head, rubbing clotted wounds raw It settled upon
my ears, rather than skull. "Good thing you got a small head. Now
keep that yanked down low. They get a good look at your bean and
they'll want to know who went down for the count."

"Who're they who await?" Jake asked, his voice dawn-calm.

"Police," said Doc, emphasizing syllables oddly. "Keep your
traps shut. Less they hear, the better. Any luck at all and I'll know
the ones checking."

As if awakening from a midnight dream we entered the city,
moving onto Dyer Avenue's stretch as it funneled us to Fortysecond. Scattered over the dusty lots alongstreet were boxes roped
together, cars' rusting frames, a bedouin's camp of patched tents.

"Burnt out this Hooverville a month ago and now ever'body's
back," said Doc, referring-I gathered-to the settlement around
us. Long bundles lay in rows as if set out for survivors' identification. Looking closely, I saw the bundles stirring, thrashed by
dreams as they were by life. Glimpses of river flashed between
cartonlike buildings to our left. Down at waterside, beyond a
highrise road, darknesses rose which could, by their form, have
only been ships. On the right, past the refugees, Ninth Avenue's
unrenovated tenements showed only their worn facades' cornices
and boarded stores. Down avenue's midlane stood a row of metal
trees. Along its unified branches entwined above a train snaked
uptown. Blocks away stood some few recognizables: the Empire
State, Chrysler's tickler, Dryco's old slab, now as it once had been,
RCA's. In the sky above, so much broader than in our day, there
seemed to be stars.

"Shit," said Doc, eyeing frontways. "We're in the soup now
Don't start gumbeatin' about anything. Got me?" A twin-bulbed
streetlamp at Forty-second's corner burnished two cars' smooth black hulls with pale gold; upon their roofs red spots revolved,
throwing bloodlight. "Jive's on," he said, his whisper closer to
ventriloquist's mumble. "Hope I can bamboozle these clowns."

We stopped and idled. The policeman ambling our way radiated
vulnerable danger. Moon white, barrel broad, over two meters tall,
he wore an unplated cloth cap and dark uniform bejeweled with
silvered buttons. His sole tools were pistol and club; the bovine look
his face held suggested that their use came naturally to him. His
like usually bagged it homeways by first week's end in my old field.
Tapping carside with his club, he reclined, resting elbows roofways
until we answered. Doc, flashing three gold teeth in his smile,
rolled down his window.

"Headin' somewhere, boy?" the policeman asked, peering in; his
grin drew up as if by poison. "Hard t'see y'in the dark, Doc. How're
y'doin'?"

"Fine, officer. Doin' just fine, sir," Doc laughed. His proper
speak came earlier in phlegmful baritone's range; wording to the
policeman he ascended uptone an octave, cloaking threat with
callow sound, blatant in desiring to do naught but please. They
behaved as if by stagecraft, for some unimaginable audition. He
drew a paper from his wallet and gave it over; the policeman shone
his flash over it. "Been over to East Orange, sir. Ever' Friday night,
you know That hospital work never do let up. "

"Who y'got with you?" the policeman asked, blinding us with
his beam's sharp light. "Patients?"

Doc slapped me shoulderways, arousing pain-his intent,
undoubted. "Yes, sir, mister officer. That's a good one. Patients!"
He laughed a near-psychotic laugh that could have curdled cream.
"This here's my cousin Luther," he said, whacking me again.
"Had'm gimme a hand over there this evenin', sir. They made him
work the smallpox ward."